The Gift of Time
by Camille2
Summary: Has time run out for Sydney and Vaughn on Christmas Eve? Or is it just beginning? Total fluff for the holidays.


Here it was, Christmas Eve, and Vaughn knew he was acting like some reject from a tv sitcom's "Very Special Episode" in which the character encounters the Ghost of Christmas Past or worse yet, does a 22 minute version of "It's a Wonderful Life." If only he could straighten himself out in the next 22 minutes. Maybe he needed to hire a writer. Maybe he should call Tippin and ask him how he would write Vaughn out of the soap opera that his life had become. Bad idea. Tippin wrote nonfiction and right now, Vaughn needed a good dose of "feel-good" tv-type fiction. Moreover, Tippin wrote investigative pieces and the last thing Vaughn wanted was someone asking him the hard questions to which he had no answers. Maybe he just needed a kick in the pants.  
  
"What's this?" Vaughn asked to himself as Donovan trundled back over to him. There was a small package tied to his collar. A package that hadn't been there a few moments ago when Vaughn had let him loose in the wooded dog run park. He hadn't chased after the dog - not that the animal moved all that fast anyway ---- he felt too lethargic. He knew he had to get out of this funk, but just couldn't seem to do so. He knew he was due at Alice's mother's house for a holiday dinner in a few hours and he knew he was going to be late. He didn't need to look at his watch to know that. He also knew that he wasn't going to call to let her know he was going to be late. No reason. Or at least not one he wanted to examine too closely.  
  
The package was wrapped in Christmas paper, a silvery-glittery kind of paper, the thick stuff that women liked to buy and that the gift wrap counters liked to use. "Wrapping to impress," he'd heard it called once. Staring at the sparkly paper, his head snapped up. Wait a minute. There was no doggie gift shop, no doggie gift wrap counter in the woods, someone had to have put the package on Donovan. Duh, Michael. Wow, that kind of deductive reasoning was sure to get him a promotion. He was lucky that whomever it was hadn't want to shoot him --- he would have never even known anyone was there. He jogged over to the wooded area, looking for whomever might have attached the package to the dog's collar.  
  
Of course, the whole area was completely empty and completely trampled. He would like to say that the person must be someone Donovan knows or at least had met, but the truth was the dog had no loyalty. Give him a Milkbone and he'll happily watch you trash the apartment. Hmm, sounds like some people he knew.  
  
Kicking aimlessly at the ground, he watched Donovan meander around for a while, unable or unwilling to take the package off the animal's collar, wondering if he should call Internal Security. Finally the dog got sick of the package flopping on his neck and shook it loose. The dog stared at it for a second, then up at Vaughn and then back at the package as if to say, "You stupid human, what do I have to do, give you an engraved invitation? Pick up the stinkin' package already!" The dog barked at him and shook Vaughn out of his stupor.  
  
Reluctantly, he walked over and picked up the package, realizing belatedly that he had just smudged any fingerprints that might be on it. "Screw it." He turned it over. There were no markings, no gift tag, nothing, just Scotch tape holding the wrappings closed. Just a small, bright, shiny package, which captured his attention as if it held all the secrets to his misbegotten life. He really had to shake himself out of this mood.  
  
But ever since Syd had walked away from him the warehouse, the day after "the" bar scene (he always used the punctuation marks in his mind), he had felt exactly as if he were still drowning in that hallway in Taipei. Then, she had tried frantically to get to him. This time, he knew she was walking away from him. That last touch on his hand --- he knew it was "goodbye" -- - goodbye to whatever their relationship had been. When he realized that, in that instant, he began to feel like he was drowning again. Only this time, he didn't have the screwdriver on him. He didn't even know what tool he should be using to get out of the water this time. And somehow, he didn't think he was going to wake up to Syd rescuing him. Again. Although he could definitely see her sticking a big hypodermic in his chest. Yeah, he could see that.  
  
Maybe getting a big ol' chestful of adrenaline was exactly what he needed.  
  
Maybe he should just open the damn package.  
  
The dog barked again and started off toward the parking lot, which oddly enough, was empty of all cars but his own. Where had everyone gone? Where had the time gone? He followed the dog, holding onto the package tightly. He unlocked the door, the dog jumped in, he slid in slowly and stared at the package in his hand. He would wait until he got back home to open the package. Yeah, that was the idea. There was no hurry to open this package, right Donovan?  
  
He started driving home slowly, then glancing over at the package, began driving faster and faster. He needed to open that package. Now. Pulling into the parking garage of his apartment building, he practically hauled the poor dog out of the car. He realized as he was walking over to the elevator that he was practically running, something he hadn't felt like doing since the bar scene.  
  
Well, if the package was a bomb, at least it had gotten his heart ticking again, even if only from curiosity.  
  
He nearly broke the key in the lock trying to force it open. Donovan was panting --- he had run the poor dog down the hallway --- and looking up at him as if he had a loose screw. He slammed the door closed and just stood there. Not even taking off his jacket, he began ripping off the paper. The box was a simple leather black box with discreet lettering on it. He stopped and frowned. That was the name of the company that...  
  
He opened the lid. And as he had begun to suspect, there sat a watch.  
  
A watch made by the same company as his father's watch. The watch that he carried. The watch that his father had given his son before Irina Derevko killed him. The watch that William Vaughn had told his son was so reliable, so accurate, that you could set your heart by it. The watch that stopped on the day he met Sydney Bristow for the first time.  
  
The watch that he had showed Sydney in that attempt to keep her from giving up on him, to give him time. Time to work out the confusion in his mind. Time, he had thought as she walked away from him in the warehouse, he had used up.  
  
Had he? What was the message of this watch? Was he out of time or was she giving him more time?  
  
Absently, he turned the watch over and over in his hands. Suddenly he had a thought --- when was the last time he could have uttered that sentence in all honesty? He compared the back of the new watch to the back of the old watch. There --- there was a discrepancy in the number of digits engraved by the manufacturer. The new watch had three more digits at the end, "101".  
  
October 1, the day he met Sydney.  
  
Suddenly he had another thought. Wow, two in one day.  
  
Last year he had surprised her with the frame. She had said later that her automatic mental response had been, "'But I didn't get you anything.' Forget the fact that we are agents, that you just broke protocol, I was all hyper about etiquette." He knew he had to give her something. Forget the etiquette, forget the protocol, remember what was important, what he had forgotten during the course of the last year.  
  
He knew just what to give her. He only hoped that he was reading her message clearly and that she would read his clearly. He hoped he still had time.  
  
He had some errands to run. They might take the rest of the evening. He ran out, ignoring the multiple messages on his answering machine, that would only accumulate as the night wore on. He needed to find some tools.  
  
Later that evening, Sydney Bristow went out to her car. She, Will and Francie were going to attend a downtown church's famous midnight Christmas Eve service. She was hoping it would lift her spirits and distract her from thoughts of her activities earlier that day and the potential consequences of those activities.  
  
Opening the car door, she saw the small package on the driver's seat. Inexpertly wrapped in plain paper, the exact size of the other package.... She had never truly expected a response like this, let alone a response this quickly.  
  
With hands that trembled slightly, she carefully pulled off the paper. It was the same box. She paused - what if he was returning it? Forcing herself not to sob, she opened the box.  
  
It was the old watch, the watch that didn't work.  
  
Looking closely, she saw that it would never work again.  
  
The hands had been removed. 


End file.
